e-Infrastructure and e-Services for Developing Countries. 11th EAI International Conference, AFRICOMM 2019, Porto-Novo, Benin, December 3–4, 2019, Proceedings

Research Article

On the Relevance of Using Multi-layered Security in the Opportunistic Internet-of-Things

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  • @INPROCEEDINGS{10.1007/978-3-030-41593-8_2,
        author={Antoine Bagula and Lutando Ngaqwazai and Claude Kakoko and Olasupo Ajayi},
        title={On the Relevance of Using Multi-layered Security in the Opportunistic Internet-of-Things},
        proceedings={e-Infrastructure and e-Services for Developing Countries. 11th EAI International Conference, AFRICOMM 2019, Porto-Novo, Benin, December 3--4, 2019, Proceedings},
        proceedings_a={AFRICOMM},
        year={2020},
        month={2},
        keywords={Multi-layered security Internet-of-Things Wireless sensor networks Opportunistic networking},
        doi={10.1007/978-3-030-41593-8_2}
    }
    
  • Antoine Bagula
    Lutando Ngaqwazai
    Claude Kakoko
    Olasupo Ajayi
    Year: 2020
    On the Relevance of Using Multi-layered Security in the Opportunistic Internet-of-Things
    AFRICOMM
    Springer
    DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-41593-8_2
Antoine Bagula,*, Lutando Ngaqwazai1, Claude Kakoko1, Olasupo Ajayi,*
  • 1: University of the Western Cape
*Contact email: abagula@uwc.ac.za, 3944991@myuwc.ac.za

Abstract

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) have recently gained more importance as key building blocks for the Internet of Things (IoT); a network infrastructure which has greatly increased in number of connected objects with instantaneous communication, data processing and pervasive access to the objects that we manipulate daily. However, WSNs may sometimes need to be deployed in an opportunistic fashion when there is no network with stable power supply available to support the dissemination of the sensor readings from their collection points to a gateway. For such deployments, traditional networking paradigms may fall short to secure the WSNs since most of the well-known security algorithms have been designed for the traditional high quality of service and fully connected networks. Building around some of the security algorithms and protocols which have been developed in the context of Delay Tolerant Networking, this paper presents a multi-layered security model for the opportunistic IoT. The model combines a hash based message authentication code (HMAC) algorithm implemented at the application layer of the IEEE 802.15.4 stack and an Access Control List (ACL) based identity based encryption algorithm used by the IEEE 802.15.4 MAC layer as a new and novel method of signing and authenticating data which is stored and forwarded on an opportunistic Internet of Things (IoT) infrastructure.